Basildon & Pitsea U15's v Thurrock 15's at Blackshots

As the day drew towards the evening the weather turned and I looked outside at 4pm and it was raining and the sky was grey with little hope of any potential improvement. On the train travelling west from Southend it looked as though the weather was worse in the west where the weather was coming from. Walked from the station in light rain and as I ate my dinner the rain got worse. Joe was ready and we checked all the social media for the inevitable cancellation notice and it wasn't there.

The manager for the U15's this year is Mark Farrington and I called him on my phone (First time I've turned it on since March)! and left a message. Looking outside it didn't look any better but the rain wasn't that heavy and I thought there may be a vague chance the game might be on still and decided we'd drive over and have a look.

It rained all the way albeit light and as we got within site of the pitch it was obvious that there were players there. Once we pulled up it soon became obvious that we were still short and as the start time approached we were still short of two players Mo and Abdul Baig. Then I realised that I had their Dads phone number and gave him a call. They were on their way but struggling with their Tomtom satnav thing.

The weather in the meantime had improved, the rain had stopped but it was grey. Thurrock won the toss and with the wicket wet, the light already really poor and us short of two players they decided to bat. Our lads with the first ball got off to a good start with my son Joe bowling okay and then Sam Good taking the wicket of 'Alex' with his first ball without making a run. Then in his second over Sam good got 'Sharma's' wicket cheaply caught by new kid 'Andrew' at Mid-off. Joe then followed that up with another wicket with a catch going to the impressive new kid Andrew this time at square leg.

Around about this time Abdul and 'Mo' Mohammed Baig turned up and joined the team making up the full team. The game was going well with 29 runs made off of 7 overs for 3. Frank Farrington the captain brought on the next two bowlers Abdul Baig and Tom Paul. Tom got a wicket with his brother taking the catch (Henry Paul) and the combination restricted the runs to a potentially  achievable total, subject to the light conditions as they were worsening by the minute. Then Frank brought on Mo Baig (Leg Spin Bowler) and this move turned the game massively in our favour. Mo's first ball was LBW and then he went on a rampage...

In his last over including the last ball of his spell, Mo took three wickets! In all he took 5 wickets for 13 off of 4 and this was his first under 15's game and he's still only 13 years old. The other thing was these weren't balls that were in the air, these were wickets where he hit the stumps including their in-form batsman 'Alfie'! So well done Mohammed Baig.

Thereafter the tail was cleaned up and with the light fading extremely quickly they all went off for a break and as far as I was concerned took far too long given that the light was quickly disappearing behind the horizon. No-one else seemed to think it was an issue and the opening batsmen Frank and Sam Jones seemed to dawdle on to the pitch as if the floodlights were going to come on any second. Initially they scored slowly, painfully slowly considering that the light was failing so quickly, for a while we were behind the run rate for the first 7-8 overs and then the run rate increased as Frank started to score runs.



To be continued...

The bloke that appeared to be Thurrocks manager, umpire and scorer all in one was the legendary Wrist Spinner Alex McLellan. We were blessed with a whole army of people to do a number of jobs. Despite being a one man show Alex did very well and hosted what was a very good game.

B&PCC 4th XI v Loughton CC 5th XI May 17th

B&PCC 4th XI v Loughton CC 5th XI May 17th

So, Loughton again, a couple of weeks ago we played a friendly match and were massacred by their 3rd XI. This time we were up against the 5ths and we had some good batsmen in the team and plenty of bowling in a variety of forms. Leading up to the match I lost my Chinaman bowler to the dreaded GCSE's; this kid is taking his GCSE's very seriously which is commendable I have to say and he was replaced by John Bedford who I thought had stopped playing, but a good addition to the team. On Friday night it looked as though I had another full team and there were no problems.

Saturday morning I woke up to a muggy warm day with the sun coming through thin cloud it looked as though we'd be on for a bit of a scorcher. All the stuff leading up to getting in the car and heading to the ground came together okay and I picked up Yash Patel one of our younger batsmen. The team this week looked like this...

Player Profiles per batting order

1. Lee Dutton - 4th XI regular right arm off-spinning all rounder.
2. John Bedford - Regular 3rd XI player not played for a year though
3.Tony Harms - 3rd game after years of being away from the game - bowler?
4.Yash Patel - 17 year old 2nd XI batsman scored 200 + last year in 4th XI game
5.Frank McLeod - Very experienced batsman 3rd XI regular
6.Mitchell McLeod - Under 15s player, plays in both 4th & 3rd XI
7. Gary Savage - 2nd game after several years of in retirement. Experienced player.
8.  Stuart Munday - 3rd game - coming out of long term retirement (All rounder)? With experience.
9.Liam Harms U15's bowler, 2nd ever adult league game 3rd game of cricket ever in any format!!!
10.Dave Thompson - 4th XI regular (Wrist Spinner).
11. Ben Thompson - 15's bowler & 4th XI player (2nd season).

A lot of these players have years of experience and are good batmen. The other thing is - every player here bowls, so my approach was to give the younger bowlers a chance first up and then the middle order blokes who can bat as well a chance later in the game. The blokes I had in mind to bat up the order, I had them bowling later in the game if at all. I asked some of them at the start of the game whether they wanted a bowl and some of them declined or seemed indifferent, so they were excluded at that point unless something bad occurred. They were there if needed.

We did the toss and I won, on advice from my tactical advisors we had a bowl which is the option I'd have gone for. I always like the idea of knowing what you're going to have to do with the bat.

Ben, my older son opened the bowling and got off to a good start taking his first wicket off the last ball of the over, can't remember what happened exactly, but Yash Patel took a catch. Ben was also called for a no ball that went for 4, it was for stepping over the popping crease line. He was called several times over his 10 overs, but I was fielding quite near the umpire and it looked to me as though he was okay most of the time? His 2nd wicket came in his second spell after being moaned at by Frank, who at this point had put on the gloves and was wicket keeping. Ben had sent a few balls down the legside and Frank wasn't happy telling Ben he needed to bowl full, down the off-side. Ben hates that, his view is...
"Why the hell do they say that, you're embarrassed as it is for doing it and more often than not, it's cost you runs, why do they say 'Line and length - Ben line and length' it's not like I don't know is it'?
But despite that he then did take it on board and didn't allow it to wind him up, instead he said I remembered what Jack Farrington had said at one of the under 15's training sessions to look at a point on the crease and aim at it and lo and behold he hit the off-stump bail and broke it! He came away with 10-0-22-2, bringing his total to 22-2-86-3 so far this season from the records that I've got so far.

I wasn't even sure whether I'd bowl or not, there were still 2 good bowlers who hadn't bowled, John Bedford and Lee Dutton. Lee hadn't bowled too well last week and John when asked seemed completely indifferent and knowing that they were going to be up the batting order I wasn't sure what to do. Thankfully Lee approached me and said that I should have a go...

We took Mitchell off and I then bowled from the pavilion end and right from the outset it went really well. I didn't feel confident enough to bowl the flipper and bowled my leg breaks and Top-Spinners. Again the two key things I did in this spell was to employ the stupidly loose grip and to try and stay relaxed and sure enough it worked fine. My length was good - full-ish and the batsmen found it difficult to get me away. One of the bats was well set (Tony Greywal) and was hitting sixes and fours at will and was heading towards his hundred, I joined the fray with him in the 80's, so he needed to be sorted. I set my field as below here...

Initially, despite one of the players making a comment regarding something about Cow corner and the frequency of balls going that way I had my No.9 and no.3 up just behind me to see how things would go bowling at the other batsman. If Greywal was still going to be going big they'd move back. I think they new intuitively that when I was bowling at the other bloke H.Ikram they'd come up and drop back to the boundary for Greywal. As it happened, realising that I was a 'Leg-Spinner' H.Ikram thought he'd have a pop at me and someone must have told Liam to drop back a bit because he went big smacking it back over my head looking to clear the boundary and with the over-spin and possible extra bounce he didn't middle it and it went more up than along and I watched as Liam settled himself and caught it perfectly! That so rarely happens I was well chuffed. Ikram was replaced by captain Peter Bridges and for the next 3 overs he struggled to get me away. Greywal hit me for a couple of 4's, but for the most part I was able to tie down whoever was there at the crease. Eventually Greywal came after me, doing exactly the same as H.Ikram smashing it over my head and again for whatever reason it was more up than along and Liam again had all the time in the world to settle himself and caught the ball beautifully.

I bowled okay, pretty well by most accounts with loads of encouragement from most quarters. A few balls strayed down the legside, but I'm not that fussed about them, sometimes they hit a bit of rough and come back in on the stumps, other times the batsman mis-hits them and the bloke round the corner takes a catch. As Frank says 'Don't worry about the last ball, think about the next one'. The main thing I have to keep in mind is the loose grip and not to get tense, when that's all under control I tend to bowl okay, so today I came away with 4-1-10-2 bringing my running total as far as I can make out to 18-2-71-5 a strike rate of 21.6.

The best bowling came from Yash Patel, he normally plays in the 2nd XI as a batsman and doesn't bowl that much, but in this game he was the only other pace bowler as such with the exception of Mitchell, but he was keeping. Yash came away with figures of 10.2-1-38-4, so a very impressive couple of bowling spells and again 3 of the four wickets as a result of catches being taken. Liam, Tony and Lee Dutton to finish the game off.

Gary Savage bowled a tight 6 overs with a wicket maiden, coming away with 6-2-15-1, so he's an asset in the games. In the 2 games so far his figures are 9-2-31-3 so a very good strike rate of 18

Running totals of the bowlers

Dave Thompson - 18-2-71-5 a strike rate of 21.6.
Ben Thompson - 22-2-86-3 a strike rate of 44
Lee Dutton - 7-0-69-1 a strike rate of 49
Gary Savage - 9-2-31-3 a strike rate of 18

They only had 10 players and we managed to bowl them all out for 166. I think the general consensus was that we'd done okay and all we needed to do now was chase that figure. Looking around at all the batting experience within the team and from what Dave Ayres had said it looked like my first win might be on it's way. But someone had said in the previous days... "Even though this is a 5th XI, this is a big team with a lot of players, they're not going to be a pushover".

I picked the team with a little bit of input, but because Lee, John Bedford and Tony Harms hadn't bowled I put them all at the top. I had the impression Frank likes to bat around no.5 and I put Mitchell in at six. It looked promising - batting all the way down to No.8 because both Stuart and Gary bat well too. But no-one took into account the bowling of Mo Ali Layoria and Peter Nicholls, within a matter of a few minutes people were scrambling to get their pads on because wickets were falling rapidly!

See below... Once Frank McLeod had gone for 9, I knew it was a lost cause. But the two openers were exceptionally good and Mo Ali Layoria is a 15 year old lad and not massive or tall, but obviously bowls exceptionally well!

The bloke who bowled me must have had a laugh - set me up good and prope.. several straight balls, varying the pace, some loopy trying to tempt me to have a go and then he offered one up wide and loopy and my eyes lit up and I popped it into the hands of the bloke at cover.

The weather was nice, our bowling looked good and did the job, so all in all it was okay. So that's two losses now, fingers crossed at home next Saturday it'll be a little better? The scoring was okay, I got lost a little during Mo Ali's 3rd over when he bowled all sorts, but when it all tallied up it was only a few out. I need to try harder.

I was hoping to shoot more pictures, but it's obvious being the captain isn't conducive with doing so.

On a more positive note...

On a more positive note (See previous post) searching around for pictures of the now defunct Murrayfields cricket pavilion in Gloucester Park, I came across these images here of a design for our own clubs pavilion/clubhouse. See the link below for more details.

Basildon & Pitsea cricket club - new club house design.

http://www.formarchitecture.ltd.uk/Basildon-Cricket-Club-House.html

Best bowling figures for a spin bowler?

Last night I witnessed and recorded on a video, an amazing spell of bowling by the wrist spinner Frank Farrington (Aged 12) bowling in the U15's for Basildon & Pitsea cricket club. I remember reading a few years back, news paper clippings about Peter Philpott, who wrote the seminal book The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling. The figures that stood out for me were 2 for 36 and 3 for 77 in games played in Manly, New South Wales against adult teams. I know already I've seen Frank do better than that last summer against adults and I'm fairly certain he did as well as this in a recent adult league game. But last night in an Under 15's B team game he did something that can only be described as amazing...

So Tuesday night, same story – rush home, get in, get my work gear off, chuck some civvies on and in the car to try and get to Orsett in 10 minutes! Needed a Subaru Impreza and a rally driver to do it though! The weather didn’t look promising, heading towards Basildon the sky looked ominously dark in that area as it had done heading out of Southend.

 

By the time we arrived at Orsett it didn’t look any better and as we got out of the car it started to spit.

 

The background story to this game… Having played at two clubs in this area of Essex, Orsett are seen as the team to beat. Rumour has it that they are such a big set up, with so many kids wanting to play for them, the kids have to go through some kind of aptitude test and if they don’t come up to scratch they’re not taken on. A mate of mine who lives right near the ground has a son who’s around about 13 or 14 and he managed to pass this test, but I recall speaking to him a couple of years later and he was saying that despite the fact that he was in the set-up, he’d never played a league game for the club.

 

The club is very well resourced both in terms of players and facilities and as such tends to be a very successful team. A couple of seasons ago our U13’s met them in the final and we lost by one run, so for us they are the team to beat. Our U15’s A team, who for the most part are made up of that same team that were beaten by one run, played their game at Orsett last week were bowled out for 53, batting first and were home within a matter of 2 hours, six of the lads went for ducks. So, today there was an expectancy of more of the same.

 

1	Mark Broadhurst
2	Stevie Wyatt
3	Harry Hodgson
4	Michael Dickson
5	Luke Sharman
6	Abdul Baig
7	Frank Farrington
8	Tim Brown
9	Joe Thompson
10	Oliver Biebuyck
11	Finlay Munro

 

As we arrived it looked as though Joe was going to open the bowling again for the 2^nd game running and the umpires were still getting themselves organised, so I quickly set up the camera only to find that I didn’t have a tripod plate. Despite this, I still video'd most of Joes bowling in the rain which now had increased to the point where it might look like the game could be called off. Joes first over was okay with him bowling into a very stiff breeze and pouring rain and he bowled a couple of wide-ish balls one of which was given as a wide, but then got it together and settled. He was bowling slow, so I can only assume that he was trying out his finger spin or he was knackered from doing PE in his last lesson at school following on from school sports the previous day. Remember too, he is still recovering from his RTA and compound fracture of his tibia and wont be fully fit for another 18 months according to the physio’s. Looking at the score sheet though, once he got it more on target and at the stumps instead of outside of the off-stump, they started to get into him. The two scorebooks don't tally up and one has him finishing with 4-1-16-0 and the other 4-0-21-0.

Oliver Biebuyck bowled from the southern end a little faster than Joe and overall it looked fairly tidy with his first over a maiden. The fielding was good and despite two strong batsmen they kept at it. The two openers and the number 3 & 4 all had decent innings and the opener retired on 35

You can see that they readily took to our bowlers, scoring freely, all hitting fours. Behind us where "The Orsett", all waiting to go in and plunder the bowling, I could hear kids saying “Oh I can’t wait to get out there, they’ve got spin bowlers, I’m just going to smack them out of the park”. Well, actually none of them are spin-bowlers as such, these are just lads trying to find their way and haven't quite settled as yet with regards to what they do, with the exception of one lad - Frank Farrington.

 

The runs kept coming at over 6 an over and we couldn’t dislodge the batsmen and then there was a break through. Frank brought on Luke Sharman, a left-arm orthodox apprentice. He had a very shaky start with his length, bowling far too full - full tosses and the first ball a beamer that nearly went over Harry "Jeff Boycott" Hodgsons head (Keeper). The following ball to C.Boreham he tried to smack out of the park through the mid-wicket region, but again it was another full toss and he didn't get any bat on it. The follow-up ball was similar and the kid Boreham smacked it as promised by his pals sitting behind me. The ball went sailing over the boundary for 6 through mid-wicket and the score at this point was looking beyond being salvaged. Frank discreetly made a field change and pushed Tim Brown deeper towards the boundary at Mid-wicket. Luke tossed another one up and this time (I think) it bounced and the kid swung at it with the same intention, but this time it went right up in the air straight towards where Frank had set Tim. We went inside and had a cup of tea and came out and the ball by now was coming down and Tim was settling himself beneath it to take the catch. This being our B-team the odds were against us by my reckoning... The hands went up and met the ball - thwack! Straight into Tim's hands and then out again, we all held our breath. In a split second Tim swivelled his head, got sight of the ball again and grabbed it... This time safely! Everyone went up and all the lads ran in to congratulate Tim...

Everyone had bowled and the score was in excess of 103 and 14 overs had gone, with only a few overs in hand, so Frank brought himself on. For me, he’d come on too late and later in the game I asked him about this and he came back with an interesting reply. He bowled his first over and it was uneventful coming away with 1-0-6-1. From where I was, I couldn’t see whether it was turning or not off the pitch, but his bowling action looked good and he was bowling with lots of air. Their no.3 batsman was doing well and was on 25 and survived Franks opening over.

 

His second over was better. The first two balls were singles, but the batsmen didn’t look as though they had any idea as to what to do – this is the same kids that were going to smash the spinners out of the park. The 3rd ball was tossed up leg-side and turned sharply hitting middle and off and Frank had bowled him round the legs! Things had suddenly got better, but remember... we had the "smash em out of the park brigade" on their way in with their Warsop bats. The fourth ball looked a little ropey as though he'd dragged it down a bit and it pitched short, the kid dropped to his knee ready for the big heave-ho instead of a defensive straight bat block, missed it and was given LBW. Frank was now on a hat-trick. The next kid came in and you'd have thought he'd have been thinking I'll block this, play safe and then smack him out of the park in the way that he deserves to be. Nope, the cock-sure wanna be batsman, clears his legs out of the way of his stumps, drops to his knee like some Kevin Pietersen, takes a massive swing it and gives Frank his hat-trick! Our boys go mad!

 

The new kid A.Cammack has a go and luck is with him and he scores 4. But Frank isn't finished with them yet. He starts his 3rd over with scores of 2-0-12-3. The first ball is a dot ball and the four hitter Cammack is on strike. Again the kid clears his stumps to free his arms, this time standing up - massive swing, cops hold of the ball with the bat and straight up into the air and Abdul Baig trots in for an easy catch. 2:2-0-12-4. The next kid comes in and they're still deluded that they can play spinners and that it's easy. What was it that the greatest batsman in the world said -

 

"No ball bowled is as difficult as one which leaves the bat and goes towards the slips. The really good leg-break beats them all.” - Sir Donald Bradman

 

 

I'll carry this on tomorrow, but in the meantime here's the BBC version of the video. I've emailed the BBC to see if they want to use the story and I've contacted the local papers, at this stage I'm waiting to here from them.

There will be another video which is longer including some of the play in between and that'll have some comical captions. A lot of people have commented on the bloke in this still image above, saying that his reaction is hilarious. So watch out for that in the next few days.

 

It was noted that these lads were not actual B-team players as such, because as many as 5 of them were in the U15's A team last week. This is kind of backed up by looking at their website http://www.orsettcc.co.uk/youthU15.php and you'll see that there is no B-team as such for the U15's, which kind of contradicts my earlier supposition about how well resourced player-wise they are.

The opinions and views expressed on this website are not endorsed by any of the clubs involved.

Basildon & Pitsea cc 3rd XI & 4th XI inter-club match.

There were no league games for the 3rd and 4th XI this week, so on Thursday night an email went round saying there was a game on Saturday at our local pitch "Langdon Hills Rec". Initially Ben had declined because he's got matches and training scheduled for Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, Weds and Thursday and Karate in there as well at some point. But the match on Sunday was called off because of a lack of players and the weather looks as though it would have put a stop to it anyway. Dave the manager suggested that I ask Ben if he wanted to play in the Saturday game. He was reluctant, but Michelle said "Yeah you're going" and he said yeah okay.


Friday, I checked the website and it didn't look that promising, but the weather looked as though it would be on our side. The layout of the teams looked a little one sided and a foregone conclusion for my team, what with all the McLeod family together on the opposition! They're all pretty good all-rounders, with Frank the Dad being a very good batsman and not someone I'd relish bowling to. The older of the two sons Connor, I've seen hit sixes every other ball in his innings and Mitchell who's the same age as Ben generally has a good go at taking the Mick out of my bowling in the nets - skipping down the wicket and looping the ball over the heads of any would be in-fielders.

Saturday and it didn't look too good, on the website it looked as though only 50% of the players had said they'd play and I was half expecting a phone call or text to say that yet again another game would be called off because of a lack of players. The notification didn't come and we eventually set off to The Rec arriving there just after 12.30 for a 1.00pm start. I didn't look good with only 2-3 others already there and no-one with the keys to the hut. It didn't get a lot better over the next 1/2 hour. A few turned up along with Neil who said he'd umpire and we had to make a decision about what to do. At 1pm there was 12 of us or thereabouts, so, Ben rang Kieran Barbero and I went round to Ollie Bybukes as he lives round the corner from the ground as we do. Ollie and his family weren't in, but Kieran came through. His Mum and Dad must have dragged him screaming from BF3 and made him haul himself over to the pitch, he also lives spitting distance from the ground.

The decision was made to pick two teams of 5-ish and those of the batting team that weren't batting were fielders, scorer and getting padded up. It worked okay, but later in the game the rules became more flexible and the opportunity to give the young-uns like Ben and Kieran additional chances to bowl meant that they bowled for the other side, thankfully no-one was batting for the other side though. The teams were made fairer in that the McLeod's were split up and the team I was in had Mitchell, so we still had to bowl to the two older more experienced McLeod's. It worked  out well, everyone had a bowl who wanted to bowl, most of us batted twice, but inevitably Franks team won.

The highlights and low points of the day were...

1. Kieran coming out and playing in an adult game despite the fact that he's recently not bowled that well and has seemed reluctant to play in the more demanding arenas of adult cricket and U16's. Today he bowled really well and seemed to causing problems for some of the more experienced players such as Frank McLeod and Brian Waterman.

2. Ben bowling exceptionally well and taking two wickets, with the team right behind and praising him all the way through, coming away with really solid figures including 4 maidens.

3. My own bowling was pretty good when I stuck to my stock Leg Break. I had a plan based on bowling Leg Breaks and then bowling the Wrong Un, which if it comes out right is better than my Leg-Break. I was thrown the ball when Chris Debond was there with Daniel Vanderputt. Chris is a LH bat and historically I've struggled against Left handers. Both of them were making runs... My first ball over the wicket was terrible - dragged down almost bouncing twice and Chris hit it for 4 somewhere (Cover I think)?  But then the next ball was a lot better doing what it was supposed to be doing - good flight, length and turning off the wicket and five dot balls ensued. As I went back to my mark I could see John Bedford padded up and waiting to come on and next to him McLeod senior - Frank. Both who are pretty good, especially Frank who has smashed me relentlessly in the nets before now! The second over Chris was facing and mid way through the first over I'd noticed that he was a lot weaker if the ball was bowled into him - cramping him up. Balls over the wicket onto his leg-stump he was dealing with, but the change to coming round bowling an Off-stump line, full and with lots of turn off the wicket was causing him problems. It was only when I tried to bowl my wrong un, that it went wrong for me and the length and flight was terrible and he got the ball away for a 2 and 4. I got another dot ball and then screwed up my run-in and bowled a full toss, which he went after and miscued it - flying up into the air allowing Mark Williams to catch it, running in from short fine leg.

That brought in John Bedford, another experienced player who's seen me off comfortably in the nets before now, but my Leg Break was coming out well and I had an air of confidence about me, so much so, I still hadn't given up on the idea of bowling another wrong-un or two. Right from the outset though (Johns first match of the season) he didn't look comfortable and I bowled a maiden. I was at 3-1-10-1 at this point. In the fourth over I opened up with a dot ball Leg-Break  and then went for the Wrong Un, John appeared for the Leg Break and it pitched on off , went through the gate hitting Leg stump. John went for 0.

Whilst that was good it meant that it brought Frank to the crease (You now need to click this link and have this playing in the background as you read on). First ball up was a Leg Break and I got a dot ball - relief! The second ball up I got the line wrong and he flicked it away deftly down the Legside somewhere and ran a single. I got the sense that he'd looked at it from one end and now he was checking it out from my end. The remaining balls were bowled at Dan Vanderputt... Dot, wide and dot. Looking at the score card I think it was Dan first with a dot and a two and a single, that brought Frank back on strike and then he started. Four, followed by a single, so for that over I'd gone for 8, with the prospect now of being taken off for crap bowling. There was a slight improvement in the following over - going for 7, but 6 of them were Franks, so the captain brought me off.

But, overall it had been going well and I've come away from it quite pleased as the Leg-Breaks were coming out well with sufficient spin to have the ball turning off the wicket nicely. The majority of the 4's including at least one of Franks was down to trying the Wrong Un and it not coming out right. So, on reflection it wasn't that bad with lots of scope to force improvements that might make a dramatic difference - working on the wrong un for a start.

Bad stuff - I didn't manage to hold on to a ball at backward of Point where I was fielding most of the time. The bowler was Mitchell McLeod and it looked like it was do-able for a split second, but I faltered in some way and the ball also dipped, so I didn't cop hold of it properly and spilled it.

Another weird observation was that Daniel Vanderputt noticed that when I run in and go through the crease and bowl that I close my eyes! I'm not 100% sure whether I don't or not, but I've got a feeling that I might do for a spilt second, not sure why? I have practiced bowling where I close my eyes for the last 2 steps, the bound and the release, so whether it is a left over from doing that or not, because it is something I've done quite a bit before now.

Kieran Took over from my end pretty soon after I'd been taken off and did a very good job of bowling at Frank, far better than me by my estimation.

Bowling figures for Ben, Kieran and me...

Ben 11-4-26-2
Kieran 11-3-37-0
Me 6-1-27-2

Front left to right - Mitchell McLeod, Daniel Vanderputt, Mark Williams, Ben Thompson, Kieran "The Barbarian" Barbero.

Back Left to Right - Sean Healey, Connor McLeod, Frank McLeod, Brian Waterman, Neil Williams, Me (Dave Thompson) and John Bedford.

I've tallied up our totals, so far Ben's played the most games with four under his belt so far, Kieran's played 3 and I've only had two so far and the grand total is...

Ben -          21-4-53-4    Economy is 2.52 and his strike rate is a wicket every 31.5 balls
Kieran       14-3-57-0    Economy is 4.07 no strike rate as yet
Me             7.2-1-35-4   Economy is 4.50 and my strike rate is a wicket every 11 balls

The rain stayed away, the milk that was left in the hut from last week was still okay so we were able to get a cup of tea and the tea was cheap this week, so overall it was a good, fun day. Especially good I thought as Kieran bowled so well in his first experience at bowling at adults.

Basildon & Pitsea 4th XI v Orsett 5th XI

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I had a number of expectations of this match, shared by some of the other members. First off, Orsett are a big set up in these parts, very good facilities and a reputation of being consistent winners. They're rumoured to turn players away and new players in some of the teams have to prove their worthiness to be taken on to the clubs books as such, so with these things in mind I thought that this was quite likely to be another massacre. The other expectation, was the weather. All of the websites and reports indicated that this was very likely to be rained off. With regards to my own expectations of my own performance I chose to reserve judgement and decided to see how it went.

Over-night it rained and with no covers it meant that the wicket would be fairly soggy and then around 10.00hrs it rained again for another 20 minutes or so and it was looking a little sketchy as to whether there would be a game. I checked the website and there were no updates so it looked as though it was still all systems go. The rain was followed by some sunshine and the continued blustery wind, so it wasn't long before it the ground was dry again, but it wasn't warm by any stretch of the imagination - around 12 degrees centigrade. As we left, I suggested to Ben that he wore a good few layers and took a coat with him. He didn't take a lot of notice, I took my coat and a woolly hat.

12.15hrs and we arrived. Pat Ayres was there and a couple of blokes I didn't recognise. The Orsett blokes were there already and first impressions was that they looked pretty formidable, but on close inspection the team looked pretty well balanced and very similar to the make up of our team. The sunshine that had followed the rain earlier had given way to dark clouds racing across the sky from the south west, diaganolly across the wicket, so anyone bowling from the Eastern end would be doing so into a brisk and blustery wind of about force 5 on the Beaufort Scale . It looked as though there was a level of certainty that at some it would rain. The captain conducted the toss and we ended up batting.

Reagan Mead and one of the other adults Chris Debond opened as discussions about who was going to score and who was going to umpire ensued as we all looked at each other muttering about the fact that none of us were particularly confident in any of these departments. The captain Sean Healy who was batting further down the order started the scoring and Anthony Ayres and Jimmy Breeze went out as umpires and the game got underway. The wicket was very damp and it soon became apparent that there was a degree of unpredictability in the wicket as Reagan played through a ball that literally got stuck in the wicket and didn't come on to the bat, crashing into his stumps. With his head bowed in disgust he made his way back to the sheds knowing that he was going to have to endure another 5 or 6 hours contemplating his sorry start to the season. Such are the travails of an opening batsman.

Yash Patel then made his way out to the middle and hit his first ball over the top of Mid-off almost to the boundary. His follow up ball was a 4 through the on-side between mid on and mid-wicket and then somewhere in his first over he hit at least one ball straight into the air to the fielder, who thankfully spilled it. The wind may have been a factor, because Yash didn't change tactics and continued in this manner for much of his innings, being put down again and again off of balls that were hit way up into the air falling short of the boundary and going pretty much to the fielders. Despite the efforts of the fielders with the ball swirling around in the air they couldn't hold onto one and this happened probably 7 times if not more! As Yash smashed the ball to all areas of the ground, he was joined by a number of batsmen that made valuable contributions to the run tally. After just a few overs we were in an impressive position of going at 10 or 11 an over with Chris hitting boundaries along with Yash. The bowling at this stage was all pace bowling with very interesting attributes, at one end the bounce seemed to be very unpredictable in that the ball seemed to leave the pitch with an increased angle in comparison with its entry trajectory. The other end where Reagan was bowled the ball hardly bounced at all initially.

Chris fell for 29 eventually to a lad called Stock who bowled him clean. At this point there was an umpire change and no-one had put their hand up and I had to go out there as the main umpire standing behind the stumps whilst Frank Farrington did the Square Leg umpiring. Not an ideal situation as it's not an area I'm that confident with and something I need to work on. Initially Frank and I were over-seeing Paul Card, who'd joined Yash, added another 7 before being caught by Shaheed off of Stocks bowling, whilst Yash carried on his onslaught. Jamie Britton (WK) joined Yash for a brief appearance and went shortly for 0 being caught by Shaheed off of Thomas's bowling. Around about the same time Frank Farrington who was umpiring at Square Leg was hit square on the knee by a shot from Yash and he went down and had to retire from the game and was later collected by his Dad. News off of Facebook reports that his Dad says he's sore, but he's in good spirits and should be okay. If you're having a look in Frank/Mark - hope you have a speedy recovery!

With Frank gone, that meant that we were down on a key batsman and bowler and a fielding situation where we might struggle. In the meantime Yash was going great guns and Ben (My son) who has never umpired in his life or taken a blind bit of notice of cricket on the television was recruited to take over from Frank at square leg. A quick set of instructions and a some reassurance from him that he had some vague idea of what he should be doing and the game commenced. Our stint lasted around 10 overs standing in the freezing cold wind - I had a woolly hat on and an over-coat underneath my umpires coat, plus a cricket jumper and wasn't too bad. Ben in the mode of a youngster was nowhere near as prepared and froze his nuts off! Nothing happened that was contentious and we got away with our masquerading as umpires!

But as soon as I'd escaped that duty I was put on scoring duty as the captain Sean Healey got ready for his batting stint. In the meantime Jimmy Breeze, one of the U16's made his way out to the middle and started to make his contribution. He made 24 before being caught and bowled by Stock. I think Stock was out there when I was umpiring and he looked pretty useful as a bowler, he had an off-cutter which came back in nicely and would easily be my un-doing if I was facing him. Meanwhile, I was struggling with the scoring because the weather had taken a turn for the worse with the cloud thickening and the light diminishing, with my eyesight poor in such light I was struggling to see what I was doing and like my umpiring it's not something I'm confident with and it transpired later that I'd made a bit of a hash of it.

At this point the people that were looking over my shoulder were adding up Yash's score and assuring me that he was reaching his hundred. Yash did,  it making his maiden 100 and went on to score 115 not out. Anthony Ayres joined the fun and scored a couple of singles in increasingly heavier rain, but eventually the captain beckoned Yash in and the game was stopped for the expected rain. This was at a point where they had been discussing declaring and once back in the shed we adjourned for tea with some expectation that this current rain was looking to be the death knell of the game. We'd have tea and see what happens in the interim.

Tea for Ben was one of the highlights having come up from the U15's where they only get a cup of orange squash and a couple of biscuits. So Ben filled and re-filled his plate a couple of times filling himself with all the goodies that were on offer. In the meantime, the rain had stopped and the clouds had broken and the sun almost came out. People on texts and FB were saying that all around us it was pouring down with rain and that they couldn't believe that we were still playing. The declaration has been made over tea and it was our turn to field with a man down. The opposition having to chase 212.

Our bowling/fielding...

Our opener was Sean Healey, the captain bowling from the west end with the wind behind him. I don't recall seeing him bowl before, but he was a very tidy bowler with a clever slow ball from what I could see. I was fielding at square leg, so couldn't really see what line he was bowling but generally it looked spot on and the fielders behind the stumps - Jamie (WKT), Chris Debond - slips and Yash 2nd slips at different stages with different batsmen all in obvious and vocal appreciation of whatever was happening. From my vantage point I could see that the bounce was being maintained in the same manner as the first innings in that it was exceptionally different from one ball to another, some low and some very steep! Sean came away with 13-2-18-2 of which one of the maidens was a wicket maiden.

Ben Thompson (My son) was the 2nd bowler, bowling from the east end bowling into the wind. He bowled 6 overs, five of them at the start of the game and then he was restricted by the fact that he's only fourteen from bowling anymore until another 10 overs had been bowled. Looking at the score-sheet below, they also struggled with their scores and they seem to have scrubbed one of Ben's overs out marking him as having not taken any wickets whereas he did take one wicket. How the confusion happened I don't know, but he was hit for 4 in his 5th over, because I myself was thinking yeah it looks as though this 5 over rule is a good idea, as it looks like he's now struggling a little and needs a rest.  So I reckon that scrubbed out over is a pretty true reflection of what he bowled, there's a no-ball in there as well and I'm pretty sure he bowled a couple of no-balls. So looking at the score book I reckon he came away with 6-0-13-1, which for his first adult game is pretty good. Ben took Wigley's wicket with Yash Patel catching the ball at slip. Ben made the additional contribution in taking a catch at Mid-off, from Sean Bowling.

The wicket-keeper Jamie Britton I felt was very good and sharp, I don't recall that a ball went past him, certainly if any did they didn't go anywhere near the boundary and would have gone for two runs at the very most and if it did happen it must have been once at the most.

Jimmy Breeze took over from Ben and bowled excellently coming away with 8-4-13-2. I think he almost had three where Ben nearly took a jumping catch over his head at Mid-off, stopping it going for 4, but he wasn't able to hang on to it.

To be honest without Frank we were lacking in bowling to some extent, with only me as far as I'm aware as a spin option and probably unknown to the captain Sean. So he turned to Yash Patel once Jimmy was done to bowl from the east end into the wind and he gave Anthony Ayres the west end with the wind behind him. Anthony, only started to bowl at the end of last year when he was made redundant as  the youth wicket keeper. He did really well with his bowling in his first forages into bowling and now here he was bowling up the order in front of me! The cheek of it! Anthony's bowling for some reason isn't recorded, I'd swear that again Sean let him bowl his full compliment of 5 overs before I came on after him. On the score sheet Orsett seem to have him down as 'Ed' and have only recorded two overs. I recall he took at least one wicket caught by Sean at Mid-on as I remember how jubilant he was at getting the wicket. I've got a sneaky suspicion that he may have taken 2 wickets, but I'm not 100%?

In the meantime Yash Patel was having fun bowling in a manner that can only be described as unorthodox. Many of the balls bowled at pace with a cross seam were banged in very short coming round the wicket. Again on the bowling analysis (See below) two wickets are recorded, but not in the tally and I do recall that Yash did take a couple. The second one was outrageous - a ball banged in about 9 yards from the bowler that had all the sting taken out of it and therefore floated up towards the batsman, who was an older gentleman, who you'd have thought would have seen a lot of bowling in his life and would have just ducked or moved to one side and smiled. But instead he was tempted and waved his bat at it, flicking it up gentle looping above Jamie for an easy catch behind the stumps having stepped backwards a few steps with all the time in the world. Ben said no - that's wrong, that bloke should be told to come back out of decency and the fact that the bowling was so bad... I'd have had to apologise to him, I'd have been embarrassed to call that a wicket.

Then it was my turn. As my spell approached I was aware that I had a full bladder and new that if I bowled like that it would put me off, so I asked the captain and missed an over of fielding. This ties in with Peter Philpotts theory that your head has to be in the right place and if there's any extraneous factors that can take your mind off the task at hand, these have to be dealt with. So I was given the ball and I had tail-enders to contend with, but one of these kids was already spanking the ball about with some ease and apparent skill and looked to have taken a liking to Anthony's bowling. But with all the stuff I'd been doing in the nets of late - especially the experience in the nets in West Hallam and return to using the wrong-un I had a plan. A very simple one... Bowl a series of leg breaks and see how it goes, so going over the stumps looking to bowl an off-stump line I started to set the trap. The kid on strike for most of the over was the more confident four hitter (Edwards). He hit me for four first ball over the top of Mid-off (Ben) who was up tempting him to do just that. With the leg break the ball wasn't turning that much hence he was able to strike the ball cleanly. Sean changed the field, pushing Ben back a bit further and who-ever was at mid on right back to the boundary but relatively straight. The next ball I tossed up a bit fuller and Edwards hit the ball along the ground straight to Paul Card at mid wicket which I was happy about for a single. The other kid that was now on strike Shahidy who was also hitting clean fours off of Anthony's bowling, so I pitched the ball up and he too hit the ball through to Paul at Mid-wicket rotating the strike again. The next ball went for 2 over the top of my head, someone shouted catch it... maybe if I was another 20 years younger I might have stood a chance!, But Edwards was playing with a straight bat and obviously accounting for the slight break off the wicket to leg and unbeknown to me doing so from just out of his crease. Irrespective of this my next ball was going to be my wrong-un which generally when it comes out right turns far more than my leg break. Thankfully it went 75% right - the flight was right, the length was right and where it pitched was right... landing just wide of off-stump it broke sharply going straight through the gate and missing everything going way wide of the leg-stump, but then... I saw Jamie effortlessly glide to the leg-side and break the bails. I looked up and the finger went up - Wicket - stumped! Off a wrong-un and to a plan! I was well chuffed.

The new bloke came in and I bowled a slightly different line - leg stump with a little more pace, as far as I was aware the kid missed it and he was plumb LBW and for once in my life I went up for an appeal along with some of the others with some enthusiasm! (I'm lame at appealing). Umpire said it was bat first. First over 1 for 8. Then Ben came on at the other end, so it was a father and son bowling attack -pace at one end and wrist-spin at the other. There was one wicket left to take - who was going to do it me or Ben? Ben bowled well again after his break, bowling 4 dot balls and then got hit for 2 by Shahidi, followed by another dot ball. He hadn't done it and Mitchell, the No.11 was on strike with no runs to his name. The money must have now been on me to finish the game off? The first ball was a dot ball and then the second ball was hit back over my head gently towards mid-off where Ben was and I turned to see Ben take the catch and finish the game off! I finished with 1:2-0-8-2. Plus a catch off of Seans Bowling at Square Leg to take Wigleys wicket.


All in all a very good start to the season and a brilliant match to start Ben's adult cricket season off with. I often wonder how interested and committed Ben is to the sport? I've mentioned here today that he never watches it on tele and he hates the idea of sitting down and watching a 4-5 day test even against the Aussies! I even get the sense that sometimes he's worried about getting hit by the ball when batting, to the point where I think that sometimes he'd rather not play. But then again he's a bit like me with a lot of the things that I like doing, in that he can't be that bothered at the outset and the whole thing feels like aggro, but once you get there and get on with it you love it. But, Ben came away from this buzzing, he loved every aspect of it, no doubt helped by the fact that it was such an emphatic win which as you can see he was integral to. He said... One of the best things was the batting and the fact that the batsmen weren't swinging at it like it was a T20 game, they batted properly. Which I thought was an interesting comment to make from someone that never watches cricket.

I was well impressed with Seans captaincy. At some point in the game when Ben was bowling and I think he did the same with Jimmy he had a three man slip cordon which I've never seen in club cricket before unless it's been a tail ender and I think Ben's wicket occurred in that scenario? I took a catch off his bowling at position slightly back of square leg. Initially I'd stood forward of square leg and he moved me just a few yards and within a matter of a few balls the ball came straight at me!

So for our first game together as a combo we did quite well. Ben taking his wicket for  6-0-13-1, and the addition of two catches one off of Sean's bowling at Mid-on and one off my bowling at Mid-on again. I got 1:2-0-8-2 and took one catch for Sean at Square Leg.

Basildon & Pitsea 212 including 123* not out for Yash Patel.
Orsett 5th XI - 87 all out

Basildon & Pitsea 4th XI

Back left to right. Sean Healey Captain, Jimmy Breeze, Yash Patel, Chris Debond, Jamie Britton (WKT), Paul Card & Anthony Ayres.

Front left to right - Reagan Mead, Ben Thompson and Dave Thompson (AKA Someblokecalleddave)

 

Note to both teams involved and self. Learn how to score properly* and don't forget your glasses!

 

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Stuart Macgill - Spin Doctor

Over at Big Cricket on the Spin Forums we've been discusing the prospects of someone taking up the role of Terry Jenner as the 'Spin Doctor'. We've always though that Warney would be unlikely as he's far too taken with the role of celebrity star and we all thought that Stuart Macgill could be a likely candidate.

A while back Stuart Macgill joined one of my forums and went public on Youtube and for a while was readily contactable, he's since moved over to his own Google page and currently he's got Basildon & Pitsea Cricket Clubs Frank Farrington's video on there for discussion and analysis. Frank's one of our clubs U13's players and he plays in my younger sons team. In the email contact that I've had with Stuart he's previously said that he was looking at doing something along the lines of Terry Jenner and it looks as though this is happening see the link here

Stuarts contactable via his Google page and his 'The Cricket Club' page.